


Baby Come Ride With Me

by nightberrypearl, paintedaybreaks



Category: NU'EST, Wanna One (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Cycling, Established Relationship, Fluff, Happy Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-09-28 01:51:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17173571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightberrypearl/pseuds/nightberrypearl, https://archiveofourown.org/users/paintedaybreaks/pseuds/paintedaybreaks
Summary: Jonghyun froze when he heard a certain four-letter word coming from Minhyun’s lips. He hadn’t really thought that he would be hearing such a word from the other any time soon. But here he was.“Do you want to come on a bike ride with me?”There it was.Bike.





	Baby Come Ride With Me

Jonghyun froze when he heard a certain four-letter word coming from Minhyun’s lips. He hadn’t really thought that he would be hearing such a word from the other any time soon. But here he was.

“Do you want to come on a bike ride with me?”

There it was.

_Bike._

Jonghyun almost shivered at the thought of bikes and cycling. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy it per se, he was sure that if he could cycle he would enjoy it very much, but therein lay the issue.

He couldn’t ride a bike.

Then also, ever since that incident back in high school with the scratched car, Jonghyun hadn’t even dared to entertain any thought of cycling ever again.

He had been so good at avoiding any mention of bicycles and his inability to ride one for so long, but then of course, Hwang Minhyun had to come along and shake things up in typical Hwang Minhyun fashion. _Wonderful._

“Uh… What’s with the sudden urge to go cycling?”

“I’m not sure, but I just woke up and felt like going out for some exercise and fresh air. And it’s a nice enough day for it.”

Glancing out the window, Jonghyun could see trees gently swaying in the spring breeze and golden rays of sunlight painting the streets below. Minhyun was right; the weather was quite nice. Damn.

“So, want to join me?” Jonghyun swore that the smile Minhyun gave him then could rival the sun that was shining outside in its brightness and intensity.

There was no chance that Jonghyun could join him. He wanted to explain his situation to Minhyun, he really did, but he couldn’t. He was just too embarrassed. To him, it was just so pathetic that a grown man such as himself couldn’t do such a basic thing like riding a bike.  He just felt ashamed.

“Uh, sorry.” Jonghyun said apologetically – that much at least was true, he _wished_ he could go with him, but he couldn’t. “I’m not really a fan of cycling. I really don’t like it.”

“Oh. Okay, well I guess I understand that, not everyone likes to cycle.” Minhyun reassured him, but Jonghyun could still see the hint of sadness on his face, “Don’t worry about it, I’ll just go by myself.”

* * *

It was about an hour or so before Minhyun finally returned to their apartment red-faced and out of breath.

“Have fun?” Jonghyun asked, noticing the way that Minhyun’s movements seemed lighter and more relaxed after his cycling excursion.

It took a few moments for Minhyun to catch his breath before he could respond, and even then, his words were punctuated with his heavy breathing.

“Yeah, it was good. I’d been so busy lately and stressed too; cycling really helped me wind down and relax. I think I’m going to start trying to go more often.”

Jonghyun hummed in acknowledgement; he was glad that Minhyun had found something to help him relax in his down time.

“It’s a shame you’re not a cycling person, Jonghyun-ah, it would be nice to go together some time.” Minhyun said offhandedly. Jonghyun knew that Minhyun didn’t mean anything by it, nothing more than what the words clearly meant, but still, he couldn’t help but feel bitter and annoyed at himself for not being able to cycle.

Perhaps it was time to fix that.

* * *

“I need you to teach me how to ride a bike.”

Dongho looked at Jonghyun with wide-eyes and shock clearly showing on his face.

“But I thought you had declared bikes to be the spawn of the devil and had sworn off cycling for all eternity?” He questioned, inwardly wondering when and why Jonghyun had had this sudden change of heart.

“Well, I think that’s _a bit_ of an exaggeration—”

“—Those were actually your exact words—” Dongho interrupted.

“—But that’s only because of _that_ incident and the fact that I can’t cycle.” Cutting Dongho off in return. The other man just looked at him in amusement – he always had enjoyed poking fun whenever he could.

“Right.” Dongho agreed placatingly, “So what’s with the sudden desire to learn then?”

“Because Minhyun’s been going cycling a lot lately and he’s really enjoying it, and he mentioned once that it would be great if we could go together and so because I want to spend more time with him, I thought that learning how to ride a bike would be a good idea so that we could go on bike rides together.” Jonghyun somehow managed to say all in one breath.

“Okay firstly, that was impressive to say in one breath, have you ever considered becoming a singer?” Dongho asked, completely missing the point of what Jonghyun had said.

“I’ll cry if I sing and your ears will bleed.” He responded quickly, wanting to move back to the topic at hand. “But anyway, back to—”

“Lies. I’ve heard you singing when you think you’re alone. It’s pretty good.” Dongho continued to ignore Jonghyun’s attempts to get their conversation back on track. “But if you really didn’t want to sing, you could always become a rapper—”

“ _Dongho_ , can we _please_ get back to the cycling?” Jonghyun almost pleaded.

But Dongho remained undeterred.

“—No for rapping too? Well that’s a shame, I knew a guy that could have helped you make it happen. I guess it’s your choice to let your freakishly large lung capacity go to waste, see if I care—”

“Dongho! Please,” Jonghyun almost shouted, his voice filled with exasperation, “can we get back to the pressing matters?”

Dongho was almost tempted to argue that Jonghyun becoming a rapper _was_ a pressing matter, but he thought he’d spare his friend for once and save that conversation for another time.

“Fine, fine.” He finally acquiesced. “So, you want me to help you learn how to ride a bike?”

Jonghyun sighed in relief that his friend was finally co-operating and nodded.

“I mean, I can of course, that’s not a problem,” Dongho began, “but I don’t get why you can’t just ask Minhyun – who’s, you know, _your boyfriend_ – to teach you instead of me.”

Jonghyun couldn’t deny that that was a logical question to ask.

“Also, given that you want to spend more time together – which I personally didn’t even think was possible – surely getting him to teach you would have been a good way to go about it?” Dongho continued.

Of course, what he was saying all made sense, and if things had happened a little differently, maybe Jonghyun would be having this conversation with Minhyun rather than Dongho. But alas, here he was anyway because of the small little lie that he had told.

“I told him that I didn’t like cycling.” Jonghyun grumbled incoherently as he glared down at his feet. But luckily, after years of friendship, Dongho had no trouble understanding his most incoherent of mumbles.

“Why on earth didn’t you just tell him you couldn’t cycle?” Dongho asked. He was mostly just astonished that _Jonghyun_ had _lied_.

“Because it’s just embarrassing, okay?” Jonghyun bemoaned. “A grown man who can’t cycle? That’s embarrassing…”

“You do know that’s stupid right? Plenty of people can’t cycle, it’s hardly embarrassing.”

Jonghyun hated that Dongho kept on making sense, that his friend was once again, correct.

 “Well it doesn’t matter anymore, Minhyun has already been under the impression that I dislike cycling for too long that I can’t tell him the truth now.” Jonghyun reasoned, making Dongho roll his eyes. “So, will you help me or not?”

Dongho released a long-suffering sigh before he responded.

“Oh, where would you be without me Jonghyun-ah. Lost I tell you. Lost and hopeless.”

Then it was Jonghyun’s turn to roll his eyes at his friend’s dramatic antics.

“How’s about we start tomorrow then?” Jonghyun offered.

“Sounds good to me. Try not to do any more stupid things around Minhyun until then. He’s bad enough on his own.”

Jonghyun let out a shocked laughed but made no attempt at denial, instead choosing to let their conversation flow to other topics, all thoughts of bikes being put on hold for the moment.

* * *

The next day, Jonghyun and Dongho met up in the late afternoon. While sun shone brilliantly, there was a light breeze keeping them from feeling too warm.

Since Jonghyun had gone into his cycling lesson with so much determination to learn, it wasn’t long until he pretty much had the hang of it. Although, Dongho would protest that fact and state his great teaching skills as the main contributing factor to Jonghyun’s quick progress. But to be fair, Jonghyun’s problem wasn’t so much that he didn’t know how to ride a bike – in theory, that was a simple task – it was just that he was _very_ unbalanced.

But after an hour so of solid practice, he was pretty proud to say that he could safely add cycling onto the list of things he could do.

It was when he was leisurely freewheeling along the banks of the river, with the wind whipping through his hair, that he began to see why Minhyun enjoyed cycling so much. It felt freeing in a way, cycling alone without a care in the world, and with his hair and his shirt fluttering in the wind, it almost felt like flying. A beaming smile made its way onto his face involuntarily as he stopped beside Dongho who had been cycling along just a short distance ahead of him.

“Enjoying yourself?” Dongho asked even though he was pretty sure he already knew the answer to his question.

“I can’t wait to come out here again, next time with Minhyun.” Jonghyun said with a far-away look in his eyes as he imagined the two of them cycling along enjoying each other’s company, only accompanied by the sounds of their laughter.

“How are you going to explain your sudden desire to cycle with him though? He thinks you hate it.”

“… I hadn’t really thought about that.” Jonghyun said, stumped by the reasonable question. “I’ll figure something out.” He added to reassure himself more than anything.

Dongho merely huffed before wishing him luck.

The two of them continued to cycle along for a little while longer before going their separate ways. Minhyun had said he would be out of the apartment that afternoon, and Jonghyun wanted to make it back before Minhyun did so that he could clean himself up so that he would smell a lot less like sweat.

* * *

When Minhyun returned home later that afternoon, Jonghyun was on the sofa with his attention absorbed by the anime playing on the tv.

Jonghyun turned his attention away from the tv to greet Minhyun as he came through the door and toed off his shoes. There was a furrow in Minhyun’s brow, Jonghyun noticed, and it was unsettling to Jonghyun that there could be something causing his boyfriend distress.

“Is everything alright?” Jonghyun asked carefully.

Minhyun tensed minutely. If it weren’t for the fact that they were so in tune with each other, Jonghyun might not have noticed.

“I think I saw you earlier today while I was out.” Minhyun stated plainly, his tone of voice not betraying any of his emotions.

“Oh. Really?” Jonghyun asked reflexively out of the panic that started to bubble up inside him.

“Yeah. I was out with Aron, and it was he who spotted you, in fact. You were with Dongho. You were… cycling together.” The last bit seemed to come out almost like a question, as if Minhyun himself couldn’t quite understand what he was saying. Jonghyun couldn’t blame him though, to him, it surely must have been confusing.

“It was sort of funny I suppose, since he knew that I’ve started cycling more, he asked if we went cycling a lot together seeing as you looked like you also really enjoyed it.” Minhyun continued to say without any semblance of humor coloring his voice.

The words were caught in Jonghyun’s throat. He knew what he should do: this was his opportunity to come clean about his lie and clear things up with Minhyun, but the words just wouldn’t come. So, he kept quiet and let Minhyun continue as he stared down at the other’s feet, unable to look at him properly.

This turned out to be a bad idea.

“I thought you said you didn’t like cycling, that’s why I didn’t push you to come with me.” Minhyun proceeded to ramble to himself, “You know, if you just didn’t want to go with me, you could have said. I would have understood.”

With that, Jonghyun snapped his head up to properly look at Minhyun and he felt his heart ache at the sight of his usually cheerful boyfriend now standing with his shoulders slumped in towards himself and a forlorn look marring his handsome face. Guilt stabbed at his chest when he saw the hurt in Minhyun’s eyes that the latter was trying so hard to hide from him.

“No! That’s not it, really it isn’t.” Jonghyun rushed to convince him. “I do want to go with you, I do, I really do—”

“It’s okay Jonghyun, I get it—”

“—No, I really don’t think you do—” Jonghyun tried to interrupt before Minhyun’s words could pain him anymore, but Minhyun continued to talk over him obstinately.

“—I know that we’re dating but it’s okay to not want to do things together—"

“—Please don’t think that, I will always want to do things with you and spend time with you—” Jonghyun started to say, but Minhyun just kept talking as if they were having two separate unrelated conversation over the top of one another.

“—I mean, if I were you, I’d probably get tired of me as well if I spent all day in my own company—”

“Minhyun!” Jonghyun finally shouted. He had thoroughly had enough of listening to Minhyun berate himself over things that could in no way ever be considered his fault. The sudden shout was successful at shocking Minhyun into silence as the taller male finally stopped talking to stare at Jonghyun with surprised eyes and mouth agape.

“Stop saying such ridiculous things. I love spending time with you; I could never even begin to get tired of your company.” Jonghyun began calmly, his voice returning to normal volume levels.

“Then why did you say that you hated cycling if not to avoid spending time with me?” Minhyun asked, still not quite convinced.

“I’ll admit that I wasn’t the biggest fan of cycling, that much was true, but I only that as an excuse because…” he trailed off, already feeling the embarrassment looming over him.

“Because…?” Minhyun prompted patiently.

“I didn’t know how to ride a bike.” Jonghyun blurts out in a mumbled rush.

“What do you mean you ‘didn’t know how to ride a bike’? I saw you earlier…” Of course, just like Dongho, Minhyun had also mastered the art of deciphering Jonghyun’s grumbling.

Jonghyun sighed, letting go of the mortification for a while so that he could at least try to explain himself to Minhyun now that the latter was actually listening to him.

“I mean, I _couldn’t_ ride a bike, or rather, I wasn’t very good at it. At least not until early today when Dongho helped me practice. That’s what you saw earlier.”

“Oh.” Minhyun said plainly, finally understanding the situation at hand. “Why didn’t you just tell me that you couldn’t ride a bike?” His face was screwed up slightly in confusion and under different circumstances, Jonghyun would have found it adorable.

“Because it’s ridiculous and embarrassing.”

“Aww Jonghyun-ah, it’s not that embarrassing… you know plenty of people don’t know how to ride a bike.” Minhyun comforted him, a smile finally back on his face and the previous tension of his body seeping out gradually.

“Well I realize that now.” Jonghyun mumbled slightly flustered.

“If you didn’t like cycling much anyway, then why did you suddenly decide to learn?” Minhyun questioned curiously.

Jonghyun felt himself grow even warmer under Minhyun’s inquisitive gaze.

“I thought that we could maybe go cycling together one day. If you wanted to, that is.”

The next thing he knew, Minhyun had swept him up into his arms for a tight embrace.

“Of course I’d want to.” Minhyun enthused as he nuzzled his head into the crook of Jonghyun’s neck.

Overcoming the initial surprise, Jonghyun felt himself relax into Minhyun’s arms as he lost himself in the feeling of being so surrounded by Minhyun’s warmth, and as he let the familiar scent of peach wash over him.

“I’d want to do anything if you accompanied me.” Minhyun whispered faintly, “If it were possible, I would never let you go.”

The words were followed by a soft press of Minhyun’s lips against his blushing cheek.

“Then don’t let go. I don’t want you to.”


End file.
